


Comfort, Truth, Joy (the Mountains of Madness remix)

by cptxrogers



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Action/Adventure, Anal Fingering, Antarctica, Avengers Vol. 1 (1963), Comic Book Science, Dirty Talk, Dubious Consent, Early in Canon, Happy Ending, Horror, M/M, Psychotropic Drugs, Rimming, Sex Pollen, Silver Age, Truth Serum, stand back i'm going to try science
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-25 21:02:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9844103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptxrogers/pseuds/cptxrogers
Summary: A mysterious signal is emanating from deep within Antarctica, and Steve and Tony set out to investigate. If they can make it through the freezing temperatures and the deadly ice fields, something even stranger awaits them deep in the antarctic mountains.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antigrav_vector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Gravitational Pull](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633668) by [antigrav_vector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector). 
  * In response to a prompt by [antigrav_vector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antigrav_vector/pseuds/antigrav_vector) in the [Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness_2017) collection. 



> This is a remix of Gravitational Pull, which is a gorgeous silver age sciency space adventure story. I really enjoyed the little Cthulhu references it had, so I took the Lovecraft theme and ran with it. This version is set in Antarctica instead of in space, and is (very) loosely based on the Lovecraft story At the Mountains of Madness, but with more sex pollen. 
> 
> I got a real kick out of all the factual and scientific information about space in the original work, so I tried to do the same here with information about Antarctica (which is SUCH an amazing place you guys, for real). Like the original, this is set in the Silver Age (so early 1960s), soon after the international Antarctic Treaty was signed and when aerial exploration and research of the continent was just beginning.
> 
> Dub con warning for sex pollen, truth serum, and mind altering substances.

### 10 days before contact: Avengers Mansion, New York

It started with an errant signal; a short burst of high frequency waves which could have been merely an artifact or a distortion. But it was the location of the signal that caught Tony’s attention as he flipped through the live feed of data coming from the recently revamped Stark satellite network.

The mysterious signal was coming from Antarctica, deep within the frozen continent and near to the South Pole itself.

As Rhodey had patiently relayed to him, the government had been less than thrilled when Tony had announced the launch of his satellite network. They cited security concerns but really just worried that his private network would overshadow their own Space Surveillance Network. Fortunately Rhodey had gone to bat for him and managed to persuade his military contacts that having access to more data was always better. Eventually they had grudgingly allowed Tony to continue expanding the Stark network.

The latest satellite added to the array had been intended to boost signals across the Southern Hemisphere, but by chance it was picking up data from the South Pole on its journey.

Tony poked at the live feed and saw that the strange signal was still there. He zoomed in closer but could see no obvious source. It was a single point of activity in a flat, featureless expanse of white in Antarctica.

Brow crinkling in confusion, Tony scanned the area around the source of the signal, but there was nothing. Just a regular, thrumming pulse coming from the middle of nowhere.

Curiosity piqued, Tony considered calling Jan and Hank. They had experience with the stranger side of scientific discoveries, and perhaps they could help. But they were out of town attending a conference on experimental microbiology together. It sounded rather hellish to Tony, but Jan had been so excited about attending that he was loath to interrupt their time away.

In the end, he called up Reed Richards to discuss his findings. Reed was located here on Earth for once, but had no more idea what the signal might be than Tony did. Tony tried a few friends and contacts he had met at scientific conferences - geologists, oceanographers, even a couple of marine biologists - but no one had any explanation for what the signal could be.

This was the point at which Tony started to become concerned. It was only a few years ago that the international treaty agreeing to leave Antarctica uncolonised and unclaimed had been signed, and the peace was still tentative. With the frosty relations between the US and Russia these days, a confrontation over disputed land or resources could lead to a global disaster.

Tony thought back to the Cuban Missile Crisis last year, shuddering at the memory of how close the two superpowers had come to wiping each other off the face of the Earth. If a major government picked up this signal and decided that it indicated some kind of tactical value in Antarctica, the tentative peace which had been established could be thrown into chaos.

Tony decided that he needed to investigate the signal himself - quietly, and before anyone else noticed it. He had gotten lucky in finding it by chance, and there weren’t many satellites currently operating which would be capable of picking up this kind of data, but he needed to be careful.

Tony was mulling over the logistics of how to investigate an unknown signal in the middle of the Antarctic when Steve popped his head around the door to the workshop with a slightly nervous smile, asking Tony if he’d like to join him upstairs for afternoon tea.

Instead, Tony waved him into the workshop and pushed aside some papers and bits of machinery to make room for him to sit. Steve had been a little jumpy around Tony since he learned that he was Iron Man (and didn’t Tony feel like the biggest fool for trying to keep that a secret), so Tony was keen to make him comfortable. After all, it wasn’t every day that you discovered that your best friend was also your team's eccentric sponsor, so Tony could understand his apprehension.

He explained what he’d found to Steve, who nodded along thoughtfully and agreed that someone needed to investigate the situation before an international incident occurred. The more Tony looked at the signal, the more of an issue it seemed to be. It was causing some kind of interference that would make it difficult to investigate from the air, either in a plane or with a lower-orbit satellite. What they needed was someone to go in on foot. Of course Steve immediately offered to accompany Tony on the mission, bless his heart.

Although it was March and the weather in New York was starting to warm, the city coming alive in a fresh spring, in the far south the summer was already ending and the bleak chill of winter was approaching. If they didn’t make it to Antarctica to investigate within a couple of weeks, then it would be almost impossible to travel once the temperature plunged below -50°. They would have to get moving soon.

“I’m sure we can manage a quick trip to the Antarctic. Edmund Hillary made it to the South Pole a few years back, didn’t he? I remember reading about that in the National Geographic,” Steve said with a sort of blithe assurance which Tony found a little alarming.

“Hillary had the backing of the richest nations on the planet and a whole year to prepare,” Tony said, trying not to sound petulant.

“Well we’ve got you and me, and a few days,” Steve told him with smile full of confidence. “So that’ll be no problem.”

* * *

A hectic couple of days later and Tony’s rushed modifications to his equipment were almost complete, and his armor was as Antarctic-ready as it was going to get. His primary concern was power use, as they would be out of contact with the world and nowhere near an electricity source for their journey, and his secondary concern was heating, which he would need both to keep him warm in the subzero temperatures and to stop the delicate machinery of the suit from freezing up.

He managed to solve both problems at once (rather ingeniously, if he did say so himself) by spreading out battery cells across the entirety of the armor, under the thick metal casing. The cells would store energy and radiate heat while they were being drained. And there was really only a very small chance of him being accidentally electrocuted.

He’d have to sleep in the armor, which was distinctly uncomfortable, but it would keep him alive for the duration of their trip in the deep cold. He also jerry-rigged a quick tracking system which would allow them to locate the source of the signal on the ground, so at least they could find their way.

Modifying Steve’s uniform had proved more of a challenge. Despite Tony’s efforts to get him into a mechanized armor of his own, Steve was insistent that he needed to be unencumbered and to have the full freedom of movement that his old stars and stripes uniform allowed him. But it was clear that the thin spandex fabric would do nothing to keep him warm, and even a supersolider would struggle in the temperatures they were expecting.

This would have been a problem, but Tony had cheerfully informed Steve that he’d developed a new fabric woven with strands that could trap kinetic energy and retain it as heat. This wasn’t exactly true - Tony had had the idea for the fabric, but it didn’t quite exist in reality yet - but it only took him 36 hours without sleep to get it working. In the end, he managed to produce a suit which looked remarkably like Steve’s regular uniform, but which would generate heat every time he moved while wearing it.

With Steve sorted, Tony returned to finalize his own suit. Despite the expanded battery capacity, he’d still be limited in how much power he could use. The thought of the battery draining and him feeling the gradual painful failure of the reactor, miles from anywhere, set off a jolt of panic. He ran the numbers and found that he’d be fine wearing the armor for protection and for warmth for a week, but that he wouldn’t be able to use the repulsors for long or he’d burn through the power.

Wherever they ended up going, he was going to have to get used to walking.

 

 

### 7 days before contact: sailing the Ross Sea

They flew the Quinjet to the tip of New Zealand, but it was impossible to fly further south without access to fuel. Tony had been meaning to work on a more efficient engine system for the jets but other things had taken priority. He grouchily reflected on how much easier their current mission would be if he had made a different choice. If they could have tracked the signal in the plane, they could have been in and out in a day. But instead, they would have to trek through some the most isolated terrain on the planet for days.

Tony had chartered a boat to take them south to Antarctica from New Zealand, and the journey began as cold but uneventful. This far south the sun barely rose above the horizon, and a hazy grey pseudo-light that lasted a few hours was all that differentiated the days from the nights. By the third day, Tony was losing sense of time but found himself awakened in the insipid early dawn sun by Steve’s excited yelling. Bleary eyed, he wrapped himself up in his coat and ventured out onto the deck to see Steve bouncing and waving to him.

“Anthony, come and see!”

Steve was at least remembering to call him by his undercover name.

“There’s whales!”

Tony focused on where Steve was pointing, and sure enough, the faint outline of huge shapes far off in the ocean were just visible through the murky water. Steve was beaming like it was the best thing that he’d ever seen.

“Can you imagine, something so big, living all the way out here in the ocean?”

Seeing Steve light up at the wonderful strangeness of the natural world delighted Tony. Steve had the heart of an artist, that was clear, but he had the fascination of a scientist too. Tony privately rather liked that there was this part of Steve that he got to see - the inquisitive and excitable part that reveled in discovering new things.

“They’re humpback whales, I should think," he told him. "They’re incredible creatures, and intelligent too. They living together in cooperative packs and communicate through song.”

The pack had cautiously swum closer, and Tony could make out the shapes of fins breaking through the dark, choppy water. With a violent splash, a huge tail appeared out of the water, spanning a full 5 meters.

“That’s how they dive,” he explained to Steve, who was gawping. “The tail is so large that the weight of it pushes them downwards into the water.”

“It’s so vast,” Steve said quietly. “I can’t quite believe that a living thing could exist on that scale.”

Tony could just about hear a strange thrumming noise, repeating and changing in pitch, punctuated by high pitched whining. “And that’s their whale song,” he said to Steve, who had cocked his head to listen. It was an eerie, alien sound, made all the more perplexing by the knowledge that it was communicative, that it had a purpose.

The ship rolled on with its slow pace through the choppy ocean, and as they passed away from the whale pod Tony’s attention was drawn to the icebergs he could see floating in the distance. He had understood, of course, that the icebergs would be large, that the whirling ocean which separated the continent from the rest of the world allowed them to remain hundreds of meters across without being broken up. But is was one thing to know this fact in the abstract, and another to look out onto the horizon and see chunks of ice the size of buildings floating past, even at a distance.

Observing the icebergs made him feel small and fragile, and he wished that he had the armor with him. But it had been carefully hidden away for the sea voyage, so as not to arouse suspicion regarding their assumed civilian identities. He would have to do without its protection for now.

Telling himself that he needed to check on their equipment, he excused himself and hurried inside, away from the ice.

 

 

### 5 days before contact: entering the McMurdo Sound

Emerging onto the ship’s deck in the sickly light of the morning, buffeted by harsh winds, Tony could see the dark mass of land looming through the misty ocean air. The water was almost completely iced over in places, and the ship had to slowly break through the ice which let out tortuous squeals as it was rent into pieces.

Eventually they moved into the relative shelter of a huge bay in the land mass, and the wind dropped. The clear, azure water was dotted with clumps of ice sheet and smaller icebergs, and in the west great dark plumes of smoke curled tendrils up into the sky.

The smoke was from Mt. Erebus, a squat, ice-covered volcano which spewed out an unending cloud of thick particles. The scenery appeared violent, but in fact it generated valuable heat in this perilously cold part of the world. That was one of the reasons the McMurdo research camp had been established at its base, and it was from there that they would set out from on the next leg of their journey.

It was a wonder, really, that in the midst of a global showdown between two superpowers, with near-misses that threatened the safety of every living thing on the planet, that the Antarctic Treaty had been signed back in ‘59. The agreement was that the continent belonged to no country, that it should never be used for military purposes, and that the one exception to the principle of minimal human contact was for scientific research. The discoveries being made in the fields of geology, earth science, biology, and even astrophysics were remarkable, thanks to the utterly unique location and climate of the most southern continent.

On another occasion, Tony would have felt excitement about meeting the scientists at the research station and hearing about their experiments and their ideas. But with the need for stealth and quiet on their trip, they would have to keep to themselves. The political situation was too volatile to risk them being identified and causing an international incident. It would be best if no one knew they were here.

 

 

### 4 days before contact: McMurdo base camp

They attracted little attention as they disembarked at the McMurdo camp. With the hubbub of researchers passing through the station, no one paid them much heed. They were able to prepare their packs and their equipment in privacy, and Tony was immeasurably glad to get his armor out of its hiding place on the ship and to have it with him once again.

The research camp was ramshackle and had obviously been hastily erected, but it was bustling with scientists and engineers who were scrambling to finish their work before the autumn turned into a brutal winter. Tony overheard discussions of research projects in soil geology, seal breeding patterns, and experimental techniques for measuring the photons that bombarded the earth from space. The lack of light pollution made Antarctica the perfect location for stargazing, and he thought wistfully of the view he’d have been able to see through his telescope. But they weren’t here to admire the stars, they had a mission to accomplish.

Apparently Steve hadn’t quite got that message though, as he seemed to be enjoying himself despite the cold and the isolation. They passed a penguin rookery a short distance from the camp where hundreds of penguins huddled for warmth, black and white bodies pressed up against each other in defense against the viciously cold wind.

Steve had smiled with unselfconscious wonder and insisted that they stop while he made an effort to sketch some of the local inhabitants. The penguins were gentoos, with distinctive red-orange stripes along their bills which made for bright flashes of color among the black and white mass. Unfortunately sketching while wearing thick fur-lined mittens was not terribly accurate, and removing the gloves was not an option in the freezing temperatures. Eventually Steve gave up and stowed away his notebook with a sigh.

As he waited, Tony changed into the newly super-insulated armor. It took a moment to adjust to moving over the slippery packed snow in the heavy weight of the suit, and he was forced to walk with a rather undignified waddle. One of the penguins seemed to have taken an interest in him, and when they turned to leave Tony found himself leading a small, stout penguin away from the rookery.

Steve took one look at Tony striding off in his shiny red armor, followed by a chubby little penguin with red highlights waddling after him, and fell about laughing. He tried desperately to convince Tony that they should take the little guy home with them, but Tony eventually persuaded him that the balmy temperatures of New York would be a sad home for a penguin, and Steve capitulated with a pout. But Tony was pretty sure he spotted Steve trying to subtly sketch him and the penguin whenever they stopped to find their way.

The first stage of their journey through the antarctic continent would be the crossing of the Ross Ice Shelf. As the enormous glaciers which lay inland pushed out frozen water from their peaks, the ice slid slowly downhill and formed sheets which sat atop the ocean. This particular ice sheet was enormous, stretching hundreds of kilometers across, and there were places where the shelf was hundreds of meters thick, its huge bulk meaning that it remained frozen year-round.

From the boat they had been able to observe that the surface of the ice shelf was undulating; the ground uneven where it had been carved into hills and dips by the biting wind and relentless push of the glacier. They would have to make their way across the shelf in order to reach the true landmass, and though its temperatures here were not as extreme as in other areas of the continent, the shelf offered challenges of its own. Where the shelf met the landmass, great ridges and crevasses could be formed by the pressure, and the structural integrity of the shelf could be compromised around its edges.

Tomorrow they would proceed out from McMurdo on foot, making their way across the ice shelf and into the mountains within a day if the whether held. This was the route taken by Amundsen and Scott fifty years earlier on the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, in which the entire party had died on the return journey. They had died of cold and starvation while stranded for nine days in a storm, trapped just a few miles from supplies and shelter.

Tony looked up at the solid wall of ice they would have to traverse the next morning and tried not to count all the ways that their journey could go wrong.

 

 

### 3 days before contact: crossing the Ross Ice Shelf

They made good progress across the ice shelf until they hit the pressure ridge at its edge. Between the great chunks of craggy sea ice that drifted in from the ocean, and the barrier ice that clung to the firm landmass of the continent, the pressure of collisions between the two created jagged peaks and deep crevasses in the ground. Sharp points of ice shot dramatically up into the sky, and deep, dark holes were visible in between the shards.

There was no way for them to pass around the barrier, so they had to make their way carefully through the uneven ice and hope that it wasn’t more than a few hundred meters to the plateau beyond. The windswept harshness of the plateau ahead was build on solid ground rather than floating on water, so would provide relative safety for them. But first they had to reach it.

Steve picked between the sharp spikes of ice with apparent ease, finding footholds and staying carefully balanced. Tony, on the other hand, was struggling somewhat. The armor was weighty and its movements imprecise, and he fancied that every time he landed a heavy metal foot he could hear the ice creaking beneath him. He had to move slowly, though he hated to be impeding Steve. Steve would have been much faster without him and, feeling guilty, Tony made an effort to speed up.

That turned out to be a mistake, however, which Tony realized in the moment that he hastily wedged his right boot between two spikes of ice to balance himself, as he had seen Steve do. The smooth metal of his boot offered no grip on the slick surface of the ice, and he had none of Steve’s athleticism or his natural balance, so his weight toppled him forward. Instinct from years of operating the suit made him lean as he slipped, throwing his weight backwards and almost keeping him upright. But he stumbled forward and his stomach dropped as his right leg plunged through a crack in the ice and into bitingly cold water.

Tony tried to pull himself out of the crack and felt panic rise in him as he realized that he was quite possibly trapped. He thrashed around but his breathing was frantic and his vision was already starting to black out. He could hear someone yelling his name although it sounded far away. He felt freezing water gurgling past his leg, and without knowing the relevant variables he couldn’t predict how long the suit would remain watertight. If the armor’s leg was damaged, if water got inside the armor, he was going to freeze, he’d lose his leg, he would die here…

“Iron Man!”

His consciousness snapped back from the brink of a panic attack when he felt strong arms wrapping around him and pulling hard. Steve. Steve was here. Everything would be okay.

“Tony, can you hear me? We’ve got to get you out of there.”

Tony pulled himself together enough to gave a tight nod.

“Good, okay. Your weight is rested on me, but to get you out I need to get your leg free. I can’t pull you out on my own, so I’m going to need your help. Can you do something for me, Tony?”

Tony nodded again, surprised at how willing he felt to put his life in Steve’s hands.

“On my mark, I need you to fire your right boot thruster.”

“I can’t,” Tony gritted out. “I never tested the repulsors under water, and it could be damaged, it could malfunction-”

“Tony,” Steve said firmly. “I need you to listen me. Your fall has weakened this section of the ice, and it’s breaking up. We need to get out of here now. You need to use your repulsors, and I’ll pull you out. We’re doing this, okay?”

Tony’s mind whirled frantically, ineffectively trying to assess his situation, but he found himself slumping against Steve and ready to follow his instructions. Sometimes you had to have a little faith. “Okay,” he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

“Right, let’s go. Mark.”

Tony closed his eyes and would have prayed to the gods of engineering if he believed in that sort of thing. He fired a half-second burst of repulsors at 10% capacity, and felt himself propelled sharply backwards. Ice ripped into the suit’s leg but he managed to struggle free. He felt Steve pulling him from behind, rolling him over as he burst free from the crevasse and pushing them both to solid ground.

As they rolled to a stop, the ice they had just moved off gave a series of shuddering groans and sank into the cold depths beneath, disappearing into the frigid water. Tony let out a heaving breath.

Still feeling shaky, Tony let Steve lift him to his feet and maneuver him to the shelter of a nearby overhang. Mercifully, Steve didn’t try to talk to him, sensing that Tony was still getting his breathing under control and trying to wind down from the flood of adrenaline.

Steve efficiently unpacked the picks and sheets from their packs and constructed a basic shelter up against the wall of the ice shelf. “We can rest here tonight,” he said to Tony in a tone that brooked no argument. “And make our way into the mountain range tomorrow.”

Tony nodded dumbly and let Steve fuss around him as he set up their camp, trying to tear his mind away from the dark, sickly memory of his weight dropping through the ice and the certainty he’d felt that he would die.

Heart still thumping unevenly, Tony gritted his teeth and willed himself to calm down. Steve handed him a candy bar, and though the thought of eating made his stomach turn, Tony took it when Steve cunningly deployed his imploring puppy eyes.

“You’re going to be just fine,” Steve said tenderly as he sat down next to Tony and pretended not to notice the way he was still shaking. “The shock will wear off. It’s this place, it’s a lot to deal with.”

Tony nodded fractionally. Steve scooted over until there was just an inch between them and leaned back against the wall. He radiated a sense of peace and stability as well as a comforting warmth. “Get some sleep, Tony. I’ll take the first watch.”

Tony felt himself slowly unwinding as he listened to Steve’s even breaths, the only sound other than the whistling of the wind outside their shelter.

 

 

### 2 days before contact: high in the Transantarctic Mountains

They had been making slow but steady progress up into the mountains until a dramatic storm rolled in, coloring the sky an inky black and whipping up the wind into a furious blizzard. Travelling onwards would be impossible - they could barely see their hands in front of their faces, and it was far too dangerous to attempt to ascend the icy, rocky mountainside, so they constructed a shelter as best they could beneath an overhang and waited for the weather to settle.

Steve was calm and collected, not seeming overly stressed by their situation, but Tony felt tense and jumpy. He didn’t like that they were at the mercy of the elements, and he didn’t like that they were trapped here, quite literally powerless against the storm.

“So tell me,” Steve said, clearly trying to humor him, “Did you ever imagine yourself as a dashing arctic explorer? When I was a kid, I loved imagining all the places I would go when I grew up, but I certainly never pictured this.”

Tony smiled despite himself at the thought of a tiny Steve with big dreams. “Yeah, I loved reading about the great explorers when I was younger. There’s something romantic about the idea of running away and leaving civilization behind.”

Steve nodded indulgently. “I always thought the men who came to places like this to explore were truly remarkable.”

“I suppose you were a fan of Scott?” Tony asked, thinking that the famed Captain's tale of doomed heroism would be appealing to Steve.

But Steve tipped his head contemplatively. “Actually, I always more admired Amundsen, the Norwegian who beat Scott to the South Pole. Scott tried to cross the continent using modern technology and assumed that would give him the advantage. Amundsen spent years studying traditional survival skills and training with his dog packs before he set out. I admire his dedication to preparation.”

Tony nodded and hid a smile. Of course the dour and fastidious Amundsen would be Steve’s favorite.

“And you?” Steve asked curiously. “You’ll tell me that Scott’s use of technology to cross the land mass was the right idea, but the wrong execution, I suppose?”

“Well, yes. But my favorite explorer was always Shackleton. He set out a few years after Scott and Amundsen, trying to cross the continent by land. His team suffered every kind of bad luck and hardship imaginable, and they failed in their mission to reach the pole, but he endured through it all and he got every single one of his men home safely. I think it’s noble to try, even if you fail.”

Steve was looking at him warmly, crinkles forming around his eyes as he answered. “He sounds like a proper hero to me.”

“Well we might end up like him, stuck amid the ice for months unless this storm clears up,” Tony groused, unable to keep his mind off the cold and the wind and the inadequacy of their shelter. He could swear he could hear the eerie squeal of whale song carried on the wind as it whipped at their tent.

“We’ll muddle through together,” Steve said confidently, “What was it that your man Shackleton said? ‘Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.’”

* * *

A few hours later, Tony had stopped worrying about himself and started worrying about Steve instead. He was hiding it well, but he was struggling to stay warm, and Tony watched him closely enough to notice.

He looked across and saw Steve still shivering. He seemed to be getting worse, though every time Tony had asked him how he was doing it he’d waved him off. But now his skin was pale and his eyes were puffy, and Tony could tell that something was wrong.

“Steve, I know you said the modified uniform was working okay, but I think my calculations of your body temperature were off. You shouldn’t be feeling the cold this badly.”

“It’s fine,” Steve gritted out. “I can take it.”

“But you really don’t look well, and if there’s something wrong with the suit then I need to know.”

“It’s not a problem with the suit,” Steve said quietly. “It’s… it’s me. I’ll be fine, physically, but I don’t deal with the cold very well. It.. It reminds me of being under the ice.”

He said that in such a hushed whisper that Tony almost missed it, but when he heard it he could have smacked himself. Of course Steve was suffering; they were essentially living out his idea of hell. How could Tony not have thought of that? He’d been so wrapped up in his own insecurities and worries about the mission that he hadn’t considered how this was affecting Steve.

Steve curled into himself even tighter, and Tony decided that hang it, he couldn’t just sit around in his cozy heated suit and watch Steve suffer. Steve had saved his life, had been so strong the whole trip, and now it was his turn to repay the favor.

As he rose and started removing the armor, Steve looked around in surprise.

“Tony?” he asked as Tony carefully removed the gauntlets and set them off to the side. “What are you doing?”

“Those penguins we saw had the right idea - huddling is the best way to keep warm,” he answered, removing his helmet and the suit’s leg pieces until just the chest piece remained. He immediately felt the biting cold through the padded trousers and shirtsleeves he wore under the armor. “I can’t imagine how it feels to have lost as much as you have, but you’re not alone here. You don’t have to face this on your own.”

“But you’ll freeze!” Steve protested. “You need to stay in the amor where it’s warm. I can survive this temperature, but you can’t.”

“Don’t worry, I converted the chestplate to emit heat outwards as well an inwards. I’ll turn up the power,” he said, walking over and sitting on the floor next to Steve, “then I can keep us both warm while we get a good night’s sleep.”

That wasn’t, exactly, strictly true. He could turn up the chestplate’s heat output enough to warm Steve, but it would be painful for him to drain so much power from the arc reactor and pump it out as heat directly onto his skin. He would certainly not be getting a good night’s sleep, or probably any sleep at all. But there was no question that Steve needed it, and that was all that mattered.

He reached down to a panel for the heating controls he had attached the chestplate and turned up a dial. The armor thrummed as the heat output increased, and Tony had to hide a wince of pain. But it was worth it when Steve rolled over onto his side to face Tony, looking heart-wrenchingly grateful. Tony lifted up the pile of blankets Steve was huddled under and slid in next to him, wrapping them both in a cocoon of warmth.

Steve reached out to run his fingers down the warm chestplate and hummed. “Since I woke up, everything is so different, and I don’t know how to be useful. Some days I still feel lost,” he admitted quietly. Tony tuned out the pain of the scalding heat on his chest and put an arm around Steve. “But you were always there to help me out. I’m so lucky it was you who found me, and I’m glad to have you here now. Thanks, Shellhead.”

Steve snuggled closer to him and put an arm around his waist, and Tony’s heart squeezed with affection. “You’re welcome, Winghead. And you’ll always have me,” he said, ignoring the ridiculous impulse to kiss Steve on the top of the head as he drifted off into sleep.

 

 

### 1 day before contact: beyond the mountains

They were now venturing into truly uncharted territory.

Once the storm finally passed, they left their shelter to find the mountains coated in a fresh blanket of pristine white snow, so that distant peaks appeared to float unsupported in the dim grey sky. There were points where the climb was treacherous and demanding, when Tony had to burn through his precious energy reserves by using the repulsors to hover up the mountain side. Steve pulled climbing gear from his pack and nimbly picked his way upwards while Tony tried not to fret over him.

As they passed between the final two peaks of a jagged mountain range, an uncanny sight awaited them. Although the mountains and every inch of ground they had seen for miles had been blanketed under ice and snow, ahead of them lay a broad, shallow valley which was utterly devoid of snow cover. The red-brown earth looked like dust; a smear of rust painted through a monochrome landscape of ice.

They walked into the valley and Tony felt gravel crunching beneath his feet, unlike the squeaking of snow he had already grown accustomed to. The air was still viciously cold, but utterly arid, the plumes of vapor coming from their breathing seeming to be the only water in the entire valley.

“It’s a desert,” Tony said, putting aside the pang of discomfort that the valley stirred in him and focusing on the knowable facts. He looked back at the mountain range they had passed through, noting its extreme height and the way that the peaks shot far above the cloud level. “See the way that the clouds cluster on the other side of the mountain? The mountains must block the snow storms from ever reaching into this valley.”

“It sure is strange.” Steve poked the ground with his foot. “It seems almost… unnatural.” He was examining the ground closely, and Tony saw with a start that patches of the ground had cracked into distinctive polygonal sections. Perfectly square rows of cracks ran along the edges of the valley, as if a great hand had sliced through the rock beneath with a knife and a ruler.

Tony suppressed a shudder and oriented himself back towards factual explanations. “It’s caused by thermal expansion,” he said, indicating a cracked patch of ground. “When it gets cold enough, moisture in the ground freezes solid into an ice wedge and pushes the rock apart, creating the cracks.”

When he went over to see the patch the Steve was examining closely, however, he felt suddenly unconvinced by his own explanation. The patch of ground in front of them had three cracks, each one a complex wave form several meters across, perfectly parallel with each other. It didn’t look like any ice wedge he’d seen before. But it was probably just an effect of the extreme dryness here.

They shook off the strangeness and continued on foot through the valley, red gravel crunching beneath them and utter stillness in the air. There were no plants, no signs of animal life, nothing at all save for them and the rocks and the distant ice slab of the glacier.

The signal was coming from a few kilometers away, at a point in the immense glacier which stretched out from beyond the end of the valley. The ice which formed the glacier was packed rock-solid hundreds of meters high, but the surface undulated with ridges from the slow but inevitable movement of the ice flows. From a distance, they could see a small lake at the base of the ice which they would have to skirt around before the began climbing the face of the glacier.

Coming closer to the glacier and the lake before it, however, Tony saw something that made his stomach flip and his skin crawl in horror. From a spring in the glacier a great torrent of red liquid poured forth; it was an ugly crack that gave the appearance of fresh blood seeping down the white ice. At first he had thought it was a trick of the light, but on closer inspection he realized with revulsion that the water pouring from the crack really was stained a deep crimson.

Even Steve, normally so stoic and well accustomed to strange and unusual sights, looked faintly nauseated as they approached the blood red waterfall. “What _is_ that?” he asked, fidgeting and trying to hide his discomfort.

Tony looked at the red gushing out of the glacier as they approach closer and settled by the shore of the lake, and his curiosity began to override his feeling of disgust. “It must be coming from a water source beneath the glacier ice. It could be an underground spring, or maybe an isolated lake.”

He wandered over to observe the waterfall more closely, and noted that despite its dramatic color, the liquid flowed smoothly and freely and had the same viscosity as water. Not blood, then. (Not that Tony had thought that it was. Of course it wasn’t blood. Mountains didn’t bleed.)

He reached out to place a gauntleted hand under the falls, despite Steve warning him not to. The deep angry red of the liquid poured over the shiny red of the armor but didn’t seem to do it any harm. Tony pulled his hand back and examined his fingers, which were still dotted with dark red particles.

“Here, look,” he offered to Steve. “I can find out what the composition of this liquid is. We just need to do a flame test.”

“Oh, I remember that from chemistry class,” Steve said with confidence. “You introduce a sample to a hot flame, and the color that it burns tells you what elements are in the sample.”

Tony was privately a little surprised that Steve would know that, and it must have shown on his face because Steve rolled his eyes and said, “Believe it or not, we did have chemistry class back in the 40s. Your generation didn’t invent the scientific method.”

Tony grinned at him. “We did make some pretty good things with it, though,” he said, gesturing at his armor with his free hand. “But okay then, Mr Secret Science Guy, you get 10 points if you can tell me what element this is.”

With his usual casual disregard for safety procedures, Tony overrode the protocols in his gauntlet and used the repulsor to fire a quick burst of bright heat. The sample of red on his hand burned up with a dramatic blue flame.

“With a blue flame like that, it could be tin, could be iron, could be arsenic,” Steve said without hesitation.

Admittedly, Tony had underestimated Steve, because he never imagined he’d have memorized that level of detail about chemistry. Steve was already laughing at him, though, and told him that it had been part of his training as being able to identify arsenic was a fairly useful skill for a soldier.

Tony couldn’t argue with that, and now he had an idea about the composition of the falls and was determined to discover the truth of it. “Just one more test to clarify then,” he said, dipping his hand back into the blood red water and then carefully using the repulsor of the other hand to let out a low pulse of heat.

Evaporating the liquid on his hand, all that remained as the water quickly wicked away in the dry atmosphere were small red particles. He grabbed a nail and a length of copper wire from the spares compartment in his armor, carefully wrapped the wire round the nail, and hooked up each end of the wire to an electrical socket in the join of his gauntlet.

“Ta da!” he announced to Steve. “Instant magnet!”

Steve smiled indulgently.

“And here, look at this,” he gestured Steve closer to him. “See how the magnet is attracting the red particles? They must be ferromagnetic.”

Steve nodded in agreement. “So that would mean…” he looked up at the blood red water falls.

“... that this water is full of iron oxide,” Tony finished his sentence for him. “It’s just rust. That’s why the water is red.” Tony tried to pretend that a wave of relief didn’t wash over him with that understanding. Of course it was just a geological effect. What else could it have been?

“That’s good to know,” Steve said with certainty. “It’s not dangerous, but we should begin the climb up the glacier face away from the waterfall, as it’ll make the ice slippery. I’m going to start trying to climb there,” he indicated a spot a few hundred meters away and started unpacking his crampons, ice pick, and other climbing gear. They spot he’d indicated looked indistinguishable from any other spot on the glacier to Tony, but he’d learned to trust Steve’s decisions about rock climbing as well as a great deal many other things.

“Right you are, Winghead,” Tony said. “I don’t think I have the faintest chance of making it up the face using our climbing equipment, so I’m going to use the repulsors. You climb, I’ll hover.”

Steve gave him a firm nod and they set about making their way up the sheer face of ice.

 

 

### Day of contact: an ice cave in the Taylor Glacier

Soon into their exploration of the glacier they came to the mouth of a cave; an open tunnel boring down into the ice. They could hear the distant whooshing of water far below them, the sound reverberating up through the ground and echoing in the spaces beneath the ice. Tony checked the signal, which was pinging noticeably in the direction of the cave, and lead them inside.

The tunnel leading from the mouth of the cave was just a few feet above their heads, and the pale sickly light of the sun quickly faded away as they went deeper. Tony was struggling to shake off a feeling of claustrophobia when he noticed a change in the dim light of the tunnel and saw a chamber ahead.

As they entered the chamber, the quality of sound changed and the soft thump of their footsteps reverberated in the space. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom, the flickering yellow light of their torches gradually illuminated a vast open space filled with crystalline ice shapes. Hanging from the roof, growing from the ground, on every surface and bump in sight were elaborate fractal ice shards shaped with the elegant symmetry of snowflakes.

Another strange aspect of this place was the temperature: the further down they traveled into the cave, the warmer it became. At first Tony had thought that this was merely an effect of getting out of the wind and being insulted under the ice, but as they moved the air around them warmed to almost room temperature.

It occurred to Tony that the temperature and the ice structures were related; that there must be a source of geothermal heat emanating from deep beneath the cave. As the warm air rose, it met the water particles suspended in the air and formed the elaborate crystals.

They made their way through the chamber, stepping carefully to avoid crushing too many of the ice structures. It would have felt wrong to destroy something so beautiful, even if it was just frozen water. There were moment when, from a certain angle, the slants of ice looked almost deliberate, as if a pattern could be discerned.

At the far side of the chamber was just one exit, and above the mouth of the tunnel were complex markings in the ice. Tony ran a hand over them in wonder.

“I’m pretty certain that this is written language of some kind. This must have been made by intelligent beings.” A few years ago, Tony would have scoffed at the idea of advanced life forms other than humans. But having befriended the Fantastic Four and seen the evidence of their travels had forced him to confront those assumptions.

“Maybe that’s why you couldn’t decode the signal. It was made by a different system of intelligence.” Steve looked around him thoughtfully, noting the thickness of the ice in the cavern. “This place, it’s very old indeed. We could be the first people to set foot in here in a very long time.”

They followed the tunnel, leading them further into the depths. Down here the temperature rose so much that the ice melted away, exposing the bare black rock of the cave that was warm to the touch. Along the way Tony could just about make out hollows in the wall at regular intervals, each with a shimmering crystal placed inside. It gave the vague impression of candles in the darkness, leading pilgrims on their way.

When they came upon a vast second chamber, Tony stared in shock at a space that could only have been deliberately constructed, with an atmosphere that suggested religious fervor. Entering what he assumed must be a temple, the sound of their footsteps reverberated around the vast space. The unnaturally loud echos disturbed the uneasy peace of the place, and Tony had the strong impression that they were intruding on a space not meant for them.

Tony gazed upwards at the vast ceiling, which appeared to both be vaulted and to have been carved out of solid rock. He had no idea how that was even possible.

Overhead hung an engraving in the rock, with two lines of text. Or, rather, one line of recognizable text which said _ilyaa ah throd_ , and one line of an utterly indecipherable series of figures that Tony could only guess was a written language related to what they’d seen in the previous chamber.

The text seemed somehow familiar, but it took Tony a few minutes to place it. “Oh,” he said as the light bulb flicked on. “I know why I recognize this. It looks like it’s based on a Latinised form of ancient Aramaic.”

Steve looked impressed, but had to confess that he didn’t have a lot of help to offer in the languages department.

Tony pondered the sign for a bit longer. “It’s a warning. I’m fairly certain it means danger lies ahead.”  

He glanced up and his eyes traveled the length of the cavern, disappearing back into the blackness. It was too easy to let the uncomfortable stillness play tricks on his mind, and he suppressed a shiver. “But not to worry, this place has been undisturbed for thousands of years. I’m sure whatever the warning was about is long gone by now,” he said, forcing himself to sound more certain that he felt. “Come on, I want to take a closer look.”

They moved further into the main chamber and looked around in wonder. Every floor, wall, and surface they could see ahead of them was covered in intricate and beautiful carvings, etched into the stone. The edges of the carvings seemed to capture the light strangely, highlighting each line with a diffuse glow of pale blue. As Tony looked down to try to avoid stepping on any of the carvings, he noticed what the nearest one depicted.

The carving portrayed what appeared to be a man, a woman, and an octopus locked together in what was either vicious hand-to-hand combat or an athletic act of sexual intercourse which seemed ambitious even by Tony’s open-minded standards.

Tony suppressed a giggle and considered pointing out the carving to Steve, wondering if the stern look he would likely get for it would be worth seeing the blush that would surely spread across his cheeks.

When he turned to Steve, however, he found him leaning down to examine another carving with interest. This one showed a man spread naked beneath an enormous winged dragon, claws raking down his chest as he writhed in either pleasure or pain. Steve was attempting to maintain an air of detached anthropological curiosity, but there was a slight blush already forming at the tips of his ears. Tony tried not to find it endearing.

They continued onward and Tony’s attention was instantly drawn to a huge shape distinguishable through the darkness, visible at first only as a silhouette of unnatural writhing shapes. As they came nearer he saw that the statue was of a strange and very vaguely humanoid creature sat upon a throne. The creature had the wide dark eyes of an octopus, with long jelly-like tentacles coming down to cover what he assumed was a mouth. The creature’s large, powerful body was part lion, part eagle, and part something else entirely. A plaque below the statue read _Cthulhu fhtagn_ in a scratched, spider-like script.

Looking upon that strange and unnatural mosaic of animal parts collected into one vast being sent a shiver straight up Tony’s spine. The unfamiliar rarely felt threatening to him, but the statue disquieted him on a visceral level that he would have struggled to explain rationally.

He hurried forward a bit faster than was absolutely necessary, and as they moved past the gigantic statue the rear wall of the cavern finally came into view. The space was not in fact endless, but had a large black altar hanging in the middle of the back wall.

Approaching the altar, they saw that it was a slab of flat material which looked like granite at first glance, but on close inspection revealed whorls and patterns of grey and white marbled across its surface that seemed to slide and change slightly every time you glanced away.

On the altar sat three boxes a few inches in diameter, each one filled with a different colored powder: one a delicate pastel pink, one bright cobalt blue, and one deep crimson red. Before the boxes sat plaques, with the same twins lines of text and figures on them as the sign overhead.

The indecipherable figures were a lost cause that would require far more extensive investigation to decipher, but the recognition of Aramaic gave Tony a starting place for understanding the text. He stared down at the words, trying to make sense of them: _gotha - phlegeth - syha'h_.

Steve had been investigating how the altar was supported (not by anything visible, apparently), but he came over to join Tony and stare down with him at the lines of script on each of the three plaques. “Any idea what it means?” he asked hopefully.

“This is an unfamiliar dialect and honestly, my Aramaic is shockingly rusty, but let me see.. I think...” Tony ran his fingers along the engraved letter forms in front of each box as he ransacked his brain for half-forgotten snippets of language.

“I think it says comfort,” he said finally, indicating the first box. “And this one says truth,” he indicated the second, and then the third. “And this one says, uhh, joy.”

Steve raised an eyebrow “Comfort, truth, and joy? That doesn’t sound so bad. I don’t see why anyone would feel the need to put up a warning sign about that.”

Tony wondered how on earth Steve managed to stay so blindingly optimistic in the face of an ancient and mysterious unknown, but he wasn’t about to admit how uncomfortable he felt if Steve wasn’t. He gave a sharp nod.

“Whatever these are, let’s take a sample of each. We can easily carry a small amount back to base camp, and I can run analyses on them while we bring back the rest of the research equipment.”

Tony was certain he’d feel better about the disquieting atmosphere of the temple once he had samples to work with and a puzzle to solve. He had seen plenty of things in his life that were difficult to understand, but the elegant simplicity of the scientific method gave him a structure through which to search for answers every time. Nothing that happened was in contradiction to nature, he reminded himself, only in contradiction to what we know of it.

Feeling steeled, he dug through the storage compartments in his armor and found a set of glass medicine vials which he could use to contain the powder and a metal spoon with which he could safely collect it. He took a small amount of each powder and put it into a vial which he then placed on top of the altar, careful to avoid direct contact with the unknown agent.

At that moment he heard, very faintly, what sounded almost like eerie music drifting into his consciousness, like the whale song they had heard days ago. He strained to hear more but Steve had also heard the sound and had snapped to attention. Steve spun around to face him, shield ready across his arm, just at the moment that Tony turned towards him. Steve was clearly more weary from their days of hiking that he admitted, because his reflexes were slow as he flinched back to avoid crashing into Tony.

But it was too late. Steve reached out with his arm to catch his balance and the edge of the shield came down hard on the vials, smashing each one on the top of the altar. He regained his balance and he and Tony both stared dumbly for a moment as the powder inside the vials reacted with the open air and dissolved instantly.

With a sickening lurch, Tony remembered that he had stripped out all but the most basic of his suit’s filtration system to fit in more batteries. Whatever these powders were, they were now airborne and he and Steve had inhaled a large quantity of them.

Before he could call out a warning, or panic, or try to block off his air vents, or do anything really useful at all, he was distracted by a rush of blood to his head and the appearance of bursts of light at the edge of his vision. Wherever he turned his gaze, bright pops of pink sparkled in the corners of his eye.

The rushing of blood to his head made him dizzy, and he caught himself on the altar before lowering himself carefully until he was sat on the floor of the temple, back to the wall. The world swam around him and he pulled off his helmet, gulping in deep breaths of cool air until he felt more steady. At least now he was relatively sure he could hold himself upright.

Steve slid into a ungraceful pile beside him, flopping down onto the stone. That seemed odd; whatever these powders were, Tony would have expected a supersoldier to have higher resilience to them. Steve seemed woozy but undistressed, so Tony decided that if Steve was okay, everything else was okay too.

Tony shrugged off pieces of his armor and stretched his limbs lazily, enjoying the tug of muscles which had been cold for too long. The ground seemed to be gently pulsing with heat. Warmth seeped into his skin and he felt gently cocooned, safe and dozy.

He could feel the warmth radiating off Steve, especially where their legs were pressed together as they sat in front of the altar. The warmth was pleasing to Tony, and he felt the need to chase more of it, so he slid his hand over to Steve’s and interlaced their fingers together.

Steve sighed happily and leaned against him, warmth running everywhere their bodies touched.

The thought broke through Tony’s comfortable haze that something was wrong, that he felt too spaced out to be attributable to mere tiredness or cold, that he must be experiencing some sort of psychoactive stimulant. He recognized that the thought was important, but it didn’t feel troubling to him. More like an interesting puzzle to mull over.

“Hey, Cap?”

“Yup?” Steve answered spacily.

“I think those powders may possibly have been. Um. Drugs of some kind? Which are now. Uhh. Affecting us. Apparently.”

“Huh,” said Steve, sounding entirely unbothered by the news. “Okay then.” He unlaced their fingers to put his arm around Tony’s shoulders and tug him closer, and Tony let himself be wrapped into Steve’s warmth. Everything felt perfectly comfortable here with the weight of Steve holding him as he buried his face into Steve’s chest and inhaled deeply, luxuriating in the familiar scent of soap and leather.

Eventually Tony pulled himself together enough to realize that he was sitting on the floor of a mysterious ancient temple and cuddling with Steve. This was not exactly how he’d been expecting this mission to go. He reluctantly tried to extricate himself. “Perhaps we should get back to the base camp? I’m rather certain that we’re experiencing psychoactive effects which are compromising our, uhh, inhibition levels.”

Steve pouted and clung to Tony a bit tighter. “But it’s nice here.”

He did make a compelling argument. Tony noticed with detached interest that his usually chaotic and rambling thought process was narrowed down to a focus on the specific details of the moment. The soft blue glow of the carvings rippled throughout the cavern, and the air which surrounded them was warmer than anywhere he’d been all week.

Tony decided that they could stay in the warmth for just a little while longer. They had earned that.

As he hummed in acquiescence and relaxed, Steve rolled over and pulled Tony almost on top of him, wrapping his arms around Tony’s shoulders and nuzzling into his neck.

“Hey, easy there, Winghead. I usually expect dinner first before this level of snuggling,” Tony tried to remember why this was supposed to be a bad idea, but Steve was hot and firm and felt perfect pressed up against him.

“I gave you my candy bar,” Steve leaned back and eyed him with a dozy smile. “That counts as dinner.”

“As if I’d be such a cheap date. What kind of man do you think I am?” Tony asked with faux outrage.

“I think you’re a brave hero, and a caring friend, and a wonderful person,” Steve said immediately, and with apparent total sincerity. Tony naturally felt extremely suspicious that anyone would describe _him_ in those terms, let alone that Steve would, and he pulled away from him, eyeing him strangely.

“Oh. Right. Well, thanks, I guess,” Tony expected that a punchline would be forthcoming, but Steve was still beaming away at him. He tried to get back on mission. “We’ve seen the basic layout of the place now, and I don’t think there’s much more we can accomplish here without bringing in some of the instruments. Don’t you think we ought to get out of here?”

“Actually, I’d much rather stay here with you,” Steve said. A puzzled expression crossed his face. “Oh. What I meant to say is  yes, it would be a good idea for us to leave. But I don’t want to go just yet because I like having you all to myself like this.”

Now it was Tony’s turned to be confused, while Steve seemed slightly shaken. “I didn’t…” he tried to explain, “Uhh. I didn’t mean to say that. It just sort of… slipped out. Sorry. Ignore me”

Tony rolled his eyes (as if he could ever ignore Steve, even if he wanted to), but he started to grasp what was happening to them. Steve was obviously under the influence of  the powder. It was some kind of advanced technological manipulation, or magic, or god knows what, and it was making him say strange things. It wasn’t as if Steve would actually think of him that way, so something must be influencing his behavior.

“Steve, listen to me. I think you’re experiencing some unusual psychological effects from that powder. Like, right now, it seems that you’re thinking and saying things that you normally wouldn’t, right?”

“No, that’s not right. I think these things about you all the time, I just don’t usually say them out loud.” Steve covered his mouth with his hand, eyes flicking from side to side in alarm.

Tony flinched back in surprise, which made Steve cast his eyes down in shame. He felt a pang of sympathy at Steve’s obvious discomfort, and decided that something was very wrong, and he was going to have to be a good friend and help Steve through this. He took the tiny voice inside him which wondered how it would feel to have Steve say those things to him and mean it, and shoved it down into a dark corner of his mind.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Tony reached towards Steve, patting him carefully on the knee in the way one might approach a skittish horse. “Don’t worry, we’ll find out what’s wrong with you.”

Steve gave a tight nod but didn’t reply, his mouth clamped firmly shut.

“I’m here to help you however I can. Just tell me what you need and I’ll do it,” Tony said, petting him gently. “What do you want, Steve?”

“I want you to bend me over the nearest surface and fuck me senseless.” They both froze for a second, and Steve’s eyes widened in shock and horror as he realized what he’d said. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I have no idea where that came from-”

Tony sat very still, mind spinning wildly as he replayed the last couple of sentences over and over in his head. Steve couldn’t have said what he thought he’d said, surely. “Erm. _What_ do you want?”

“I want to suck your cock,” Steve looked slightly panicked, like the words were coming out without his having any control over them. “I want you to grab my hair and fuck my mouth, and then I want to feel your come running down my throat.”

Steve had the audacity to look scandalized, as if he wasn’t the one with the filthy mouth and the beautiful ideas. “My word, Tony, I really am so sorry, I can’t seem to stop-”

Tony’s eyes narrowed as his mind fought through a cloud of desire, and eventually an idea presented itself. He leaned in a bit closer and peered at Steve curiously.

“Steve. What do you _want_?”

“I want you to push me to the floor and rim me until I’m sobbing. I want your tongue inside me and I want you to make me beg to come.” Steve snapped his mouth shut but it seemed to be taking a conscious effort for him not to say more, and a furious blush spread across his cheeks.

Tony inhaled sharply, trying rather unsuccessfully to divert his attention away from his throbbing dick and the fact that Steve not only knew certain words but wanted to put them into practice, and back to the situation at hand. The effect of the powders on their behavior was clearly more than just relaxation, which meant they were being influenced by an unknown and possibly dangerous substance. There were in uncharted territory, with no back up, and no medical facilities. Their predicament was serious. And yet.

He looked at Steve, cheeks burning and eyes dark with lust, and he couldn’t resist. A wicked grin spread across his face and he enunciated carefully.

“What do you want, Steve?”

“I want you to put on the armor, and hold me down, and finger me with the gauntlets. I want you to open me up and make me wet and finger fuck me until I come all over my chest.” Steve’s knuckles flexed, suggesting that he was considering shoving his entire hand into his mouth to keep himself quiet, and he glared at Tony. “And I really want you to stop asking me that, for the love of god.”

Tony could feel his pulse racing and his skin prickling, something akin to adrenaline pumping through him. Steve’s body seemed suddenly to be very close to him, and his field of vision narrowed until it was filled with nothing but Steve. Tony had been hard already - he defied anyone to hear the things that Steve had been describing and not to get excited - but he felt blood rushing southwards with more urgency than before; a sharp thrum of desire building in him.

He would have expected Steve to have greater immunity to whatever they were experiencing that him - Tony was just a regular (old, tired, sick, fallible) human, and Steve was engineered to be the peak of human perfection. But right now, Steve looked even sweatier and wilder than he did, and when Tony tried to sneak a subtle glance down at his crotch he discovered that yup, Steve was peaking in more ways that one.

Steve squirmed. “I need to… I have to… I’m so sorry,” he mumbled, not looking Tony in the eye. Tony opened his mouth to reassure Steve but promptly shut it again when he saw that Steve had brought a hand down to his crotch and was massaging himself through his uniform, letting out an obscene groan of relief.

Tony’s brain short circuited and any hope of sensibly defusing the situation went out of the window as he stared in unabashed wonder at the sight of Steve desperately pawing at himself through his clothes.

“Uh. Are you sure you want to be doing that here?” Tony glanced around at the looming shadows of the cavern and the slithering outline of the monstrous statue beyond.

Steve was ignoring all of that and staring at Tony hungrily. “I know exactly what I want.”

He took Tony’s hand and placed it boldly onto his cock, straining through his pants.

Tony hesitated but didn’t pull his hand away, unsure about the ethics of sex under the effects of mysterious drugs. But he was sounded distracted by Steve pushing up into his hand and letting out a little whine.

“Come on, Tony, touch me, _please_.”

And that was all it took to shred Tony’s self control completely. He rolled on top of Steve and massaged his cock through his clothes, then pushed him back and unbuttoned his pants. Steve was breathing heavily and his cock bounced free when Tony pushed his pants and underwear down to his thighs.

Tony had to take a second to appreciate the view of Steve spread beneath him, uniform rucked up and hard cock slapping against his abs. Then Steve fidgeted and let out an impatient huff of air and Tony had the mad thought that he would do anything, absolutely anything, to give Steve what he wanted.

Wrapping his hand around Steve’s cock, Tony almost thought he could feel tiny sparkles cracking between them, momentary flashes of pink light sparking in the corners of his vision. Steve was thick and warm in his hand, a pulsing throb of heat running between their skin.

He stroked Steve slowly, lazily, as if they had all the time in the world. Steve’s breathing evened out, and he let out little pleased hums when Tony flicked his thumb across the head. The frantic tension that had sparked through them earlier faded to a dull thrum as they relaxed into each other.

Steve smiled into Tony’s shoulder and Tony wondered whether he was allowed to kiss him or whether that kind of intimacy was not a part of what they were doing. Some men were like that, he had found. The idea of doing this with Steve regularly, of touching him and kissing with him and waking up next to him, flashed through his mind and he ignored it with practiced ease. If this was all they would have, then he would make sure Steve enjoyed it.

He slowed his strokes and ran his hand down and over Steve’s balls, gently cupping each one. He stroked the inside of his thighs and inched back slowly towards his ass. When he rubbed a finger against his entrance, Steve gasped and his hips jolted.

Tony played gently with his hole, watching Steve’s face as jolts pleasure zapped across it. Each sensation seemed to come to him as a delightful surprise.

A thought occurred to Tony and he drew back his hand a fraction. “Steve, have you ever done this before?”

Steve went a little pink at the tips of his ears but answered steadily. “Not with another man, no.”

“Oh,” Tony said dumbly, wild fantasies of all the things he could share with Steve flipping through his mind. “But what about those things you suggested?”

“Modern magazines are quite informative, and I have a very active imagination,” Steve said with a devious grin. “And I tried some, ahh, experimenting myself.” He didn’t blush at that, but Tony did.

“ _Oh_ ,” said Tony again, trying to wrap his head around the mental image of Steve in an experimental masturbation session.

“I told you, I know what I want. And right now I want your fingers inside me.”

“Demanding,” Tony said in mock exasperation, “I like it.”

He regretfully had to clamber off Steve for a moment to reach over to a piece of the armor he had tossed aside, but smiled triumphantly when he opened a compartment to find a vial of clear liquid. It was lubricant for the joints in the armor, but thank the heavens for his previous forethought, it was safe for internal use.

He crawled back on top of Steve and poured lube over his fingers, Steve watching him with pupils blown wide with lust. He brought his hand down to circle experimentally at Steve’s entrance and slid a finger inside, slowly, gently.

Steve made a needy little noise and tensed for a second before gradually relaxing, smiling up at Tony from beneath his lashes.

Tony waited for the look of woozy pleasure to come back to Steve’s face before he started sliding his finger in and out. He carefully slid a second finger in and watched the way Steve gasped and writhed. “You like that?”

“God, yes,” Steve informed him with one hundred percent certainty, and Tony could feel the way that he was squeezing down on his fingers.

He built up a lazy rhythm, sliding his fingers slowly out before pushing them into Steve in one hard thrust. Every time he did so, Steve would thrash and moan and babble meaningless words of encouragement.

Tony took his time, relishing the noises and twitches he could pull out of Steve using just his fingers, let him relax into the feeling of pleasure. Steve clenched around his fingers, trying to draw him in deeper, but Tony smiled to himself and continued gently teasing him.

When Tony cocked a finger and angled it upwards, he felt the tip brush against Steve’s prostate and he let out a strangled keening sound.

“Mmm,” he quietly talked him through. “Feels good, doesn’t it?”

“ _Yes_ , Tony, I want more-”

Tony was habitually inclined to immediately give Steve everything and anything he could want, yet currently he felt his attention curiously narrowed. He could focus on the most minute details; the beads of sweat which were forming around Steve’s temples, the way his ab muscles would ripple whenever he brushed his prostate, the warm, firm pressure of Steve around his fingers. He felt an almost overpowering urge not just to make Steve feel good, but to make him blissful, to see how much pleasure he could give him, to see how much he could take. Steve deserved that.

So instead, Tony smiled at him with all the blooming warmth he felt spreading inside his chest. “Not yet, love. First I want you to come just from my fingers inside you.”

The gasp that Steve let out suggested that he was absolutely on board with that plan, and he reached upwards to brace himself against the cool wall behind them. Then, with a strength and agility that Tony should have been accustomed to by now but which still took his breath away, Steve flexed his body and began pushing himself firmly downwards onto Tony’s fingers.

Tony was dimly aware of his own pulsing erection, but it seemed frankly of minimal importance when compared to the sight of Steve blissfully fucking himself on his fingers. He curled his fingers and let Steve push down even harder, rubbing the tip of his index finger against his prostate.

Steve’s movements were becoming erratic and his thighs were trembling, biting at his lip as he neared the edge.

“Come on, gorgeous, you can come now. You’re taking it so well.”

Steve stiffened and his muscles clamped down hard around Tony’s fingers as he came in thick pulses accompanied by a deeply satisfied groan. Steve’s whole body slumped comfortably and he smiled at Tony with warm, dozy fondness.

Tony eyed the streaks of white that were splashed across Steve’s chest with a grin. He bent his head and slowly licked up a streak, smirking as Steve shuddered. He held Steve in place around his ribcage and licked him clean, tongue flicking across broad muscle.

He continued downward, flicking his tongue across the head of Steve’s softening cock, eliciting a gasp. Steve was warm and pliant under his mouth, and he moved to settle himself between Steve’s legs. With gentle encouragement from Tony’s hands, Steve spread his legs wider so Tony could lick along the inside of his thighs.

Tony drew his tongue lightly across the cleft of Steve’s ass, making him whimper. He nibbled down his thighs and then back, licking more firmly at Steve’s hole. Steve carded one of his hands round the back of Tony’s head and gave a soft, needy tug on his hair. And that was all the encouragement he needed to bury his face into Steve’s ass.

Steve tasted rich and musky, the slickness of the lube warm against his mouth. He licked at Steve hungrily, feasting on the moans and twitches Steve let out. Steve’s cock was hardening already, and Tony raised an appreciative eyebrow.

“Is that an effect of the powder, having basically no refractory period, or is that usual for you? I need to know for… scientific reasons.”

Steve looked a little embarrassed but answered honestly. “Actually it’s always been like that, since the serum.”

Tony grinned lewdly, said “God bless America,” and went back to eating his ass, licking stripes across his hole and sliding his tongue inside Steve to make him writhe.

Steve hooked his hands beneath his knees and pulled his legs apart, spreading himself wider for Tony. Tony hummed appreciatively and moved closer to fuck Steve with his tongue, making him whine loudly and tug at Tony’s hair.

When Tony had thought about this (not that he’d been thinking about it), he never imagined that Steve would be so needy. Bizarre ancient drugs aside, it was unbearably hot.

“Wait, Tony-”

Tony stopped his attentions and flicked his eyes to Steve’s face.

“I want-”

“Anything you want, you can have it.”

“I want to taste your cock.” Steve blushed only a tiny bit as he said that, and Tony thought he might die happily on the spot. “But I don’t want you to stop doing that,” he waved towards where Tony was sitting between his legs, and blushed a bit more.

“Oh.” Tony decided that no, _now_ he could die happily. “Yeah, okay, we can find a way to make that work. Let me get out of these clothes.”

He had realized that he was still half clothed, the insulated layers of the undersuit rucked up where Steve had pawed at him. He also realized for the first time in a while that he was almost painfully hard. Suddenly the idea of Steve sucking him seemed urgently, wonderfully necessary.

He yanked off his clothes and threw them aside, lying down on the warm floor of the temple. For carved rock, it felt strangely comfortable as he positioned himself face up.

“Okay,” he said to Steve, who had been watching him hungrily. “Come over here and kneel over my shoulders, and put your hands by my hips.”

Steve moved smoothly across him and into position atop Tony, facing the other direction. He licked his lips as he bent down over Tony’s straining cock and immediately licked roughly across the head with his broad tongue. Tony cursed and tried not to buck his hips into Steve’s face. Steve hummed with satisfaction and opened his mouth to swallow Tony down, mouthing at him messily.

Steve might have been inexperienced at this, but he made up for that with a great deal of enthusiasm. He took to cock sucking with his usual fast learning curve, excelling even when faced an upside down Tony.

Tony grabbed Steve’s hips and clung on, the feeling of Steve’s mouth around him almost overwhelming, sending hot spikes of pleasure and need through him. After a few seconds he remembered what he was supposed to be doing and reached his face up to Steve so he could lick wetly at his entrance. The angle was awkward and he had to crane his neck upwards but it was worth it when Steve gulped and moaned around his cock.

They stayed locked in mutual pleasure for what felt like hours, their soft groans and the wet lapping sounds bouncing around the cavernous temple, reverberating into the distance.

Eventually Tony felt Steve’s thighs trembling, his body twitching above him. Tony hummed with pleasure and ran his hands down Steve’s sides, reaching round to palm at his cock. “It’s okay,” he mumbled into Steve’s ass. “You can come all over my chest. I want to feel it.”

Steve moaned around his cock and Tony went back to licking at his hole, pressing his tongue deep inside while wrapping a hand loosely around Steve’s cock and gently squeezing.

Steve twitched, pulled off Tony’s cock to gasp for air, and came with a shuddering cry. Tony felt wet streaks landing on his chest and experienced a dizzy whirl of joy at having brought such pleasure to Steve.

Steve was glowing with post-orgasmic pleasure, nuzzling his face up into Tony’s thighs. The slick slide of their skin and the soft press of Steve’s cheek against his cock was enough to send Tony over the edge himself, and his cock spurted between them as white waves of release washed over him.

With a lazy stretch, Steve stood and straightened himself up. Tony was still floating down from his orgasm when he felt Steve lying down next to him and wrapping strong arms around his waist. Tony opened his eyes to find himself face to face with Steve, who had a wicked grin on his face.

Steve nuzzled up against him and then bent his head to lick the streaks of come off Tony’s chest, as Tony had done to him earlier. “Did you like that?” he asked, looking up at Tony almost shyly.

“Are you kidding me?” Tony found himself answering without thinking about it. “That was hands down the hottest experience of my entire life, despite the fact we’re in a creepy temple to ancient and terrifying gods.”

Steve glanced around at their eerie surroundings and gave a casual shrug. “If it works,” he said with a mischievous grin, leaning across Tony to finish cleaning him up with his tongue.

He licked his way down and back up Tony’s chest, nibbling across his jawline and then pulling him close for a kiss. Tony could taste himself on Steve, the sweat and come both of them mingled together, a heady musk filling his senses. He laced his fingers into the hair at the back of Steve’s head and kissed him deeply. Perhaps this was allowed after all.

“I guess this is all a bit sudden for you,” he said, trying to give Steve an out.

“Actually, I’ve been wanting this for a long time.”

Tony pulled back and eyed him with just a hint of wariness. “Really? But… since when?”

“Well, I thought you were almost unbearably handsome since the moment I met you, to be honest,” Steve said with a soppy smile. “But it was when I found out you were Iron Man that I really fell for you.”

Tony stared at him in amazement. He had expected Steve to hate him for keeping his identity a secret, for lying to him and the rest of the team. Now he looked back on it, the deception seemed so unnecessary. He should have been honest with Steve from the start. “I shouldn’t have kept that from you. I’m sorry. I can only imagine what that made you think about me.”

“That made me think that you were even more remarkable than I did before,” Steve told him with apparent sincerity. “You’re Tony Stark, genius inventor and team benefactor, _and_ you’re Iron Man, the brave and kind hero and my best friend. How could I resist?”

Tony buried his face into Steve’s chest, overwhelmed for a moment. Steve put and arm around him and held him in comfortable silence.

“Hey, Tony?” Tony glanced up to find Steve looking pleased with himself, like he’d just had a very clever idea. “What do you want?”

Tony found that the words came out unbidden. “I want to do whatever it takes to make you happy. I want to be the better person you see in me. And I want to make you proud.”

Steve looked startled by his answer, and he would have felt mortified about being so earnestly sentimental, but the huge smile that spread across Steve’s face after a moment made the embarrassment worth it.

“Well you’re doing a great job so far,” Steve told him, gathering up Tony in his arms and squeezing him fondly.

Tony sighed and tried to be sensible. “I suppose it’s time that we got out of here…”

But he could smell the scent of sex all over Steve and thanks to the powder he could feel himself growing hard again already.

“... unless you wanted to go again?”

* * *

Eventually, much later, they staggered out of the cave and back to their camp to collect the research instruments. But when they tried to return to the mouth of the cave, they found nothing but flat, untouched ice stretching in every direction.

Brow furrowing, Tony checked the signal and saw with a start that it had disappeared entirely. Whatever had been causing it, it was gone now.

“No danger of any world government coming to investigate it then,” Steve said with a casual shrug. “I guess that means mission accomplished.”

Tony was immensely relieved to find that the aerial interference had disappeared along with the signal, meaning he could radio his contacts back in New Zealand to ask them to refill and prepare the Quinjet, then remotely pilot it to their location. He’d never been so pleased to see the familiar shape as it descended through the cloud cover a few hours later.

They bundled onto the plane as soon as it arrived, keen to be out of the cold and away from this unsettling environment. Steve checked the equipment, raised the hatch, and piloted them up into the sky. Tony watched the land sink below them from the window, the dangerous spikes and pits receding into an unblemished field of white as they rose. Steve flipped the switches to engage the autopilot system and let out a huff of air. “Ready to get out of here, Shellhead?”

“More than you can imagine,” Tony told him. “But first I need to send a notice to the research team to warn them away from the area. I don’t think the world is ready to know about this place just yet.”

Steve hummed in agreement and waited politely for Tony to finish tapping out his message before slipping his hand into Tony’s with a shy smile.

Tony gave his hand a gentle squeeze. “Come on then, Winghead. Let’s go home.”

 

 

### Epilogue

 **From** : Tony Stark  
**To** : Antarctic research group  
**Status** : urgent  
**Message** : _The aberrant signal detected in Antarctica has been investigated and neutralized. While there may be information of scientific interest yet to be discovered in this desolate place, the perils of the journey and the dangers that lurk here cannot be overstated. For your own sake, stay away. It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone. Further research not advised._

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> While researching for this I got super into the topic of antarctic exploration. The [dry valleys](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMurdo_Dry_Valleys), [blood falls](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Falls), and [crystal ice caves](http://icestories.exploratorium.edu/dispatches/the-ice-cave/) are all real places which exist there and are extremely cool! I highly recommend the BBC documentary series Frozen Planet if you want to learn more about this incredible continent.
> 
> The line “Nothing happens in contradiction to nature, only in contradiction to what we know of it.” is borrowed from the X-Files and is generally fantastic life advice. Also, the line “It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth's dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone” is a quote from the ending of At the Mountains of Madness. It seemed apt.
> 
> Great Cthulhu, please forgive the author, your humble servant, for her sloppy use of the R’lyehian language. _Iä! Iä! Cthulhu fhtagn!_
> 
> This was my first attempt to write a longer ploty story rather than my usual short and smutty fic so I hope you enjoyed it. A big thanks to antigrav for providing such great inspiration, and I hope you like the remix!
> 
> If you'd like to share this fic, it has a tumblr post [here](http://cptxrogers.tumblr.com/post/157787206329/comfort-truth-joy-the-mountains-of-madness)!


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